Rob Reiner Insisted Tortured Son Nick Had Been Clean for 6 Years — Weeks Before 32-Year-Old Allegedly Slit His Parents' Throats

Rob Reiner described his son Nick as healthy and stable just weeks before the 32-year-old was arrested and charged with the brutal killings of the acclaimed filmmaker and his wife, Michele – in a contrast that has shocked Hollywood and investigators alike.

OK! can reveal the 78-year-old When Harry Met Sally… director's comments were made in a September interview, recorded three months before the killings. Rob spoke optimistically at the time about his son's long struggle with addiction while promoting This Is Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.

And at the time, the director appeared confident Nick's darkest years were behind him. Authorities now allege Nick knifed both his parents to death inside their Los Angeles home on December 14.

In his NPR interview, Rob was asked about his family and his work, including his collaboration with Nick on the 2015 film Being Charlie – which tells of a father struggling to come to terms with his son's drug addiction.

Reflecting on his real-life boy's recovery, Rob said: "He's been great," adding Nick had not "been doing drugs for over six years."

Rob went on to say: "He's in a really good place."

Those words have taken on new weight following Nick's arrest on two counts of first-degree murder. It's understood Rob and Michele were found in their beds with their throats slit and multiple stab wounds. Experts warn Nick could face life in prison or the death penalty if convicted.

He is currently being held without bail at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, where he has been placed on suicide watch.

The September 2025 interview also revisited Rob's role as both a father and a filmmaker, navigating his son's addiction. Discussing Being Charlie, which portrayed a young man cycling through rehab and homelessness, Rob rejected the idea he had been distant or neglectful as a parent.

"I was never, ever too busy," he said. "I mean, if anything, I was the other way, you know, I was more hands-on and trying to do whatever I thought I could do to help. I'm sure I made mistakes and, you know, I've talked about that with him since."

Being Charlie was loosely based on Nick's own experiences, with Rob directing and his son co-writing the screenplay. At the time of its release, both father and son described the project as a form of reckoning with years of pain and missteps.

In a separate 2015 interview, Rob acknowledged moments when he and his wife had failed to listen to their son. "When Nick would tell us that it wasn't working for him, we wouldn't listen," he said. "We were desperate, and because the people had diplomas on their wall, we listened to them when we should have been listening to our son."

Michele echoed the sentiment in the same interview, saying: "We were so influenced by these people. They would tell us he's a liar, that he was trying to manipulate us. And we believed them."

Investigators now say the couple may have been killed hours before their Rob's body was discovered by their daughter, Romy Reiner, 28.

Nick is said to have had a furious bust-up with his father the night before the killings at a holiday party hosted by Conan O'Brien in Los Angeles, where witnesses later described his behavior as erratic.

Insiders say he was approaching celebrity guests and asking them a series of similar inane questions, including what their surnames were and why they were famous.

Before Nick's arrest, he had checked in to the Pierside Santa Monica hotel, where staff subsequently found his shower "full of blood" and saw a trail of it leading up his bed. He had also allegedly covered his window with a bedsheet.